This
past Fall I taught the first half of the United States & the World survey
(1763-1914) for the first time. More so than most classes, the subject matter
for this course tows a cartload of nationalist historical baggage. . . . [T]he
challenge comes from the more deeply embedded assumption that the history of
the United States is the history of a nation-state, and a powerful and
exceptional nation-state at that. I knew that it would be a challenge to
convince students that in global terms the early United States was a weak
nation, a provincial backwater. And even students who are highly aware of the
violent dispossession of Native Americans still have a hard time understanding
that process not as national growth (“westward expansion”) but as empire (the
conquest and rule of foreign peoples and nations).

In
teaching these topics, I found law—both domestic and international—to be an invaluable
companion.